People have had 17 years to draw the conclusion that the play offs are the part of the season that matters ? What a joke that is ! Last season,Leeds winning from 5th was unusual & it doesn't mean it will happen again this year. There are 3 lots of silverware on offer ,but it is up to the individual supporter to decide which one, or all, he or she considers to be the most important.As for attendances the playoffs will be a good indicator of the current health of the support.Judging by the Challenge Cup rounds ,supporters don't like spending extra to what they have paid for season tickets so the gates have been badly hit, which is understandable in the current economic climate .It will be interesting to see the gates for the playoffs. We are living in hard times & with the price of petrol is it any wonder that away support is down ?

I don't live in Warrington, I live far away but go to every game, one of the things that surprises me is that there are many casual fans who could go but don't because it's a tad inconvenient. I live in a town with no sporting team to support and consequently the town has no real identity, no feeling of pride in the town. Warrington is lucky it has such a team and the local population should realise how lucky they are, because without doubt if more people choose not to go to the match because it interferes with their busy lives, one day, there won't be a match to go to.
If you're a fan, you have a duty to go, inconvenient or not !

A season tickets rise of 6% shouldn't mean a corresponding rise in attendance. I would hazard a guess that most of the new season ticket people were just fans who went to almost every game last year anyway?

Attendance can also be dictated by which games are chosen by SKY as well so it's potluck. All seems very promising to me if you're saying that even for the games that are not supported well by the away fans, we did not drop under 10,000!

5% of population isnt THAT bad. Take Leeds. Using a similar proportion they would need to attract over 35k. The smaller overall increase in average compared to the increase in season tickets, to me, means that more people like what they see and have chosen to come every week.

Promoting the Wigan/Saints games (as previously stated) would be a waste of money. You would not generate a larger increase in revenue than it would cost. There have been falls in crowd this season have been in the away stand. The Wigan attendence was probably hit by people who had a) spent their money visiting langtree on the Monday, b) were away on holiday and c) saving their pennies for Wembley.

I must admit that on matters of our attendances, I'm in the glass half empty camp. Yes there appears to be a continued rise, all be it a slight one skewed by the "gift" of Widnes, but, I think we are light.

Blame the government's econimic policy, the bankers, the oil cartell, Sky TV, competition format, a drop in away fans, whatever. There has never been a better time to be a Wire and the townsfolk should back the team another 1500 on the average and sell outs v Wigan and Saints would show Moran and the players that we are behind them...sorry for my Delia Smith moment

I think the visiting fans are responsible for most of the drop in our gates , i'm sure the only time the away end was full of visiting fans this year was for the visit of Saints.

How far away do you live, and do you have a car? I rely on public transport so getting to the home games is costly and eats up a lot of time, even though I could probably manage it now. I usually go to the games in West Yorkshire, though I have to admit this season has been pretty meh and I've only been to the Leeds game (missing that would be criminal since I can [isee[/i the stadium from my top floor). I think last season really spoiled us and so this season has been disappointing in comparison, even though I used to go to plenty of games a few years ago.

it wasn't that long ago we had an average gate of 4500! Any year on year increase is fine...especially in the current economic climate.

Ah, those were the days ! No queues at half time, plenty of space for the species. Where did it go wrong ?

On a more serious note, Hull are aiming for 10,000 ST's next year and managed to sell well over 600 on their first day of sales. And no, they are not discounting prices. I suppose they have invested in new players and there has always been a big potential pool of supporters over on Humberside. Who knows, perhaps they will make it.

Someone get this man a Blue Peter badge. He's clearly our bestest ever fan of all time innit.

As for increase in season ticket sales not being exactly reflected in overall increase, well of course it isn't. Do you think those extra season ticket holders had never been to a match before, or do you think that just maybe they went to a lot of games anyway and now they have a season ticket they are reducing the number of pay on the day fans? Hardly rocket science working that out is it?

Any increase is a positive. End of story.

changing ends at half time, walking on the pitch! My god can you imagine the outcry if we tried to do that now! Health and Safety would have a baby!..stay off the yellow lines people!

Is it that simple ?

Presumably there is some factor (winning, attractive rugby) that causes an increase to the ST numbers. That same factor would perhaps also apply to non-season ticket holders.

So a guy that attends 4-5 matches may like what he sees and go to 7-8 matches the next year (rather than buy a ST) . Or someone reads about the success of the club and decides to try a couple of games, or is persuaded by his son. Or somebody may start watching Sky RL and see Warrington doing well, and decide to go to a live match.

So I suspect the reasons are in fact quite complex when you start to look into it.

I have the attendances as the list below with an average of 11,452, unless I've gone wrong somewhere;

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/86671137@N04/7938025186/[/url

Compared to 2002 our average was 6189, including some terrible lows of 4190, 4416 and 4667.

Quote ="lister"I have the attendances as the list below with an average of 11,452, unless I've gone wrong somewhere; [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/86671137@N04/7938025186/[/url Compared to 2002 our average was 6189, including some terrible lows of 4190, 4416 and 4667.'" I took the bulk of my data from here www.rugbyleagueproject.org/seaso ... mmary.html

Quote ="lister"I have the attendances as the list below with an average of 11,452, unless I've gone wrong somewhere; [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/86671137@N04/7938025186/[/url Compared to 2002 our average was 6189, including some terrible lows of 4190, 4416 and 4667.'" I took the bulk of my data from here www.rugbyleagueproject.org/seaso ... mmary.html

Only because people like you view it as such finishing top of league is still the hardest of all trophies shield to win, Its only devalued by SKY and those brainwashed into thinking it doesnt matter. lets face it the GF is just the same as say the regal trophy.

Oh and you have to play them games to challenge for a play off spot to be in contention, Do the qualifying rounds to the cc not mean anything because its only the final that counts ??

Get a grip people

Anybody new to RLFans should be given a SC warning....

looking at those figures I am surprised at the low figures for the visits of Wigan, Bradford, Hull and especially Leeds.

I have been saying for a while now that we need to be doing a lot more in the marketing department. It seems to me that most fans are from 'Warrington proper', with very few from the new town areas. This is something we should be targeting, get people who have moved to new areas like Chapelford along and capture their imagination. Like with Bullmania we need to make the Halliwell Jones the place to be, rather than just sitting back and hope the good football on the field will sell itself.

I think some people are overplaying the 'gift' of the Widnes game, take the 2k extra away and our average would still be higher than last year. By less, obviously, but still an increase...
We've been at the HJ nearly ten years, and we've almost doubled our Wilderspool averages, but as others have said, there's always more that can be done. However, times are hard, travelling support is down, so any increase should be applauded...

Wakefield should be commended for getting their crowds up this season, they have done a brilliant job.

The best way to increase attendances is to keep winning and add at least one Super League title to our CV. I always said throughout my teens that I never felt Warrington was a " proper" rugby town in the way that Wigan and St Helens were, because despite Wire being the only professional sports club in the town, I always felt RL was second to football in popularity whereas in Wigan and St Helens it was the other way round.

The key difference was that their teams were more successful than ours so more people were interested and wanted to watch them. I reckon there will be a bigger than 6% increase in season ticket sales next year if people are buying them to watch the champions. Success breeds support.

Hull is a long way, while Bradford were potentially a few days away from dissolution. Wigan and Leeds were both on Sky, along with 4 other home games (I looked them up earlier). We had 12 games on Sky in total, 6 home and 6 away, with Leeds next on 11. Both times we played Widnes were on Sky, which seems like an odd decision...

Wakey have increased their crowds this year- what have they won? Of course silverware has that affect but we need to build upon it and turn casual fans into regular faces. Not just that, open the game up to people outside of the town or sport. I remember when I first went a few years back, as a sport RL is very cliquey, where as if you go to a soccer game it is attended by people from all over, for many it will be there only game of the year. Make it a day out and people will come.

One of those was a round where every Super League game was on Sky, Widnes away isn't on TV.